Education Icon Education
Free Speech Icon Free Speech
Intelligent Design Icon Intelligent Design

Dogmatic Darwinists Strike Again: Americans United for the Separation of Students and Science

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State today sued a school district in El Tejon, California, because they have a philosophy course entitled “Philosophy of design.” While the course is misnamed (it’s teaching about many non-ID things like young earth creationism or Genesis), this new trick represents the true heart of these Darwinists: they don’t care about keeping religion out of the science classroom, their goal is to censor any non-evolutionary views in ANY venue regardless of whether or not it is religion or science!!

The course is misnamed:
The course is misnamed–it actually advocates for young earth creationism and teaches out of the Bible. Such a course would have been more aptly titled something like “Philosophy of Origins” — but not “Philosophy of design” because intelligent design has nothing to do with young earth creationism or Biblical views. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE acknowledges that “Most ID proponents accept an ancient age of the universe and Earth … most ID proponents do not embrace the Young Earth, Flood Geology, and sudden creation tenets associated with [young earth creationism].” (Eugenie Scott, Evolution vs. Creationism, pg. 126, 128).

Darwinist Inconsistency:
Darwinists have stated that ID is religion. Thus they have said that ID was just fine in a philosophy, or non-science course, as long as it stayed out of science courses. This is because even the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that “education is not complete without a study of comparative religion.” (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 42 (1980) (citing Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 225 (1963))

While of course we think that ID is not religion, a bona fide scientific theory which could be taught in science classrooms, we won’t oppose non-science teachers that want to present this material to their students. Virtually any topic could be game for a non-scientific philosophy survey course like this one, where no material is being taught as science. We thought the Darwinists were willing to see non-evolutionary ideas considered in non-science courses. Turns out they were lying.

Rev. Barry Lynn, who leads Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, apparently doesn’t want ID even in a philosophy course, because it’s too dangerous for young minds to learn about regardless of the venue.

But consider what Lynn said earlier last year:

“The Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the president’s comments irresponsible and said that “when it comes to evolution, there is only one school of scientific thought, and that is evolution occurred and is still occurring.” Lynn added that “when it comes to matters of religion and philosophy, they can be discussed objectively in public schools, but not in biology class.“” (Furor erupts over Bush’s remarks on intelligent design, by Elisabeth Bumiller, Wednesday, August 3, 2005, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/03/MNGFOE1VHN1.DTL)

So what happens when ID is taught in a non-biology, non-science course? They change their tune.

This is a philosophy class where it’s implicit that this material isn’t being endorsed by the district as science. What objection could one possibly have to having students learn about material some people consider religious in a philosophy course? The answer is simple: Darwinists aren’t interested in keeping non-evolutionary views just out of the science classroom, they want non-evolutionary views out of students minds completely. If anyone ever doubted the full measure of Darwinist dogmatism, this lawsuit should dispel those doubts.